1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a system of separating walls in a room to be subdivided.
2. Brief Description of the Background of the Invention Including Prior Art
Room-separating walls are known which are composed of a sequence of wall members which are movable and positioned on a guide rail attached to a ceiling. Furthermore, different structures are known to park the wall members of a room separating wall on the side, for example in a niche or a recess, such that the wall members, placed in sequence with the wall face, form a bundle which takes up a minimum of space. In order to achieve the storage of the wall members, it is known to furnish a branch from a main guide rail at the ceiling, for example at an angle of 90.degree. relative to the course of the room separating wall in order to furnish a second guide rail, which extends parallel to the main guide rail, at a distance equal to the axial distance between the two load-bearing bolts with roller cross-head of the movable and positionable wall members.
There are known different drive devices for said movable and positionable wall members in order to achieve the mechanized composition of the room separating wall or, respectively, in order to achieve the bundled parking of the individual wall members. A drive device for movable and positionable wall members along a guide rail at the ceiling is known from the European printed patent document EP0,471,230-A1, which drive device is characterized by a chain or another drive element, which drive element is supported inside of the guide rail itself and which exhibits entrainment means, which entrainment means protrude relative to the support members of the movable and positionable wall members, wherein these support members exhibit vertically adjustable pins in order to form a stop for the passing entrainment means and in order to effect, in case of fully extended pins, the carrying along of the wall member in one of the running directions of the chain. This drive system has proven to exhibit little reliable upon exchange of the roller cross-head of the movable and positionable wall members from the main guide rail to the side guide rail or onto the branch guide, in particular when these branch guides form an angle of 90.degree. with the longitudinal direction of the main guide rail.
The European printed patent document EP-0,574,851-A1 described a drive system for movable and positionable wall members of a room separating wall, which drive system is characterized in that a coupling is furnished, which coupling is movable between the support members of the wall members and the transport chain, and which allows the coupling or, respectively, the decoupling in the branch region of the guide rail.
A control system for a drive system with a chain or another drive element is known from the German petit patent DE-G 9,209,496.1, where the drive element is supported in the guide rail for the wall members itself.
All these known solutions exhibit, however, functional interferences in particular in the branch region of the guide rails or in the regions, where the guides are running at an angle. A further disadvantage of the known systems is the noisy running of the chains and the noise of the coupling and decoupling between the entrainment means and the support members of the movable wall members as well as the rather complicated control system.
All the known systems exhibit in addition the disadvantage that they use electrically operated power drive systems in order to achieve a driving out and a driving in of the sealing ledges against the floor and against the ceiling. These known electrical drive systems presuppose an electrical connection between the individual wall members, forming the room separating wall, in order to achieve the current supply and the control of the electric motors in the interior of each wall member.